


and all you never say (is that you love me so)

by serenascampbell



Category: Holby City
Genre: Angst, F/M, FIx It, First Kiss, Pure, scene edit, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-20
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:35:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenascampbell/pseuds/serenascampbell
Summary: what we all wanted tonight, what we were all hoping for.





	and all you never say (is that you love me so)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [char xxx](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=char+xxx).



Fletch had been waiting for her now. He knew that no matter what came out of this surgery, there was a conversation to be had and he wouldn’t be frightened off by her tough act.

She enters the room wordlessly, with Essie one step behind, and looks directly at Anna.

“Textbook,” she begins with a smile. “We’ll keep him sedated for the next 4-6 hours and see how he goes. But he’s being transferred to ITU now so if you’d like to join him.”

“Thankyou,” Anna replies gratefully, relief flooding through her whole body though she maintains her composure.

“I’ll walk you down there,” Essie offers with a smile, beckoning her out of the room as Anna offered a thankful glance to Fletch before she left.  

Fletch makes no move for the door, he knows she needs this too.

“So, you think I should quit.” Jac is matter-of-fact in her words, there is no tone of offence.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Fletch defends.  

“You don’t think I should be here,” she states confidently.

“Of course I do. I mean, I don’t want you to go anywhere.” Jac looks towards him as though for the first time in her life, she is really _hearing_ what he’s saying. “Look, I just…I just think you need to do what’s best for you.”

“And you think you know what that is?”

“No, I don’t…’cause you don’t wanna tell me anything.” She rolls her eyes at him, folding her arms over her chest as if they might protect her the same way her attitude did.

He walks towards her, arms spread open as he steps into her space.

“I’ve tried to be there for you…as a colleague, as a- a friend and, well, you just don’t wanna talk to me, so…” Fletch tapers out as he looks for words, whether his or hers.

“What do you wanna know?”

“I don’t know,” he answers, shaking his head.

“No, come on. Clearly you think I owe you,” her tone rising as the gates of her ivory tower began to lower.

“Eh, no. I don’t think you owe me anything,” and he speaks the truth. He has never expected anything from her, no matter how much he has wanted it.  

“You can’t have it both ways.”

Fletch frowns at her slightly, trying to figure out what this is. Is this her letting him in, or is this her trying to push him further away?

“Alright then. What are you doing here?” he questions and she meets him with narrowed eyes. “If you were gonna leave then getting shot was the perfect out, so what changed your mind? Who are you doing this for? Y’know, is it Hanssen…Raf…Valentine…yourself? I mean, I don’t know.”

Jac is quiet for a long time as she calculates her answer. It would be so easy to tell him the truth but she could already feel the world starting to crack at the mere thought of that. She searches herself for an answer, searches him too and finds nothing but the truth as he turns from her.

“I don’t understand what you want from me, Fletch.”

“I know.” 

Fletch crosses towards the door resolutely. Only as he makes it to the door frame does Jac wrap her fingers around his wrist to stop his steps.

His head turns; the two were stiflingly close now. She runs her tongue over her teeth, meeting his gaze with a nervousness causing her pupils to dilate.

“You.” She swallows, the faintest hint of a hopeful smile threatening to grace her lips.

“What?” Fletch furrows his brow, stepping out of the doorway and back into the room.

“You changed my mind. That stupid day with that drunken elf when you said you couldn’t have done it without me. I know you didn’t mean it but just hearing those words, even if they were you being characteristically over-dramatic, made me feel like I needed to stay.”

Her fingers were still locked around his wrist, more loosely now, and he looked at her like she was made of glass.

“And now you need to go,” he almost whispers, barely audible at all.

Immediately the softness he had seen her is sheeted in steel, hidden from his view as she drops his wrist and gives a firm, indignant nod.

“Because it’s what’s right for you. We’re always gonna need you, Jac. _I’m_ always gonna need you, and just because _you_ need to be somewhere else for a while isn’t going to change that.” His tone had such sincerity, the kind that not even she could pretend to doubt.

She notices the way he is looking at her, with such admiration, and she couldn’t help but wonder if he knew…that she loved him, that was. Her attempts to keep it concealed had been somewhat half-hearted, but he truly was the most oblivious man she’d ever met at times.

“Sweet as that is, Fletcher, I’m actually concerned that the hospital might fall apart in my absence, not _you_ personally.” Jac Naylor’s ability to turn on _this,_ whatever precisely it was that made everybody quiver at the thought of her, was utterly remarkable. Well…everybody except Fletch.

“Don’t do that,” Fletch practically pleads, seeing straight through her. He reaches up and tucks a strand of her wavy hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger there with his thumb against her jaw.

A moment that seemed to compress a brief sempiternity into its temporal confines was held between them. Jac does not drop his gaze this time, does not excuse herself as she always did, but rather stays there.

Fearfully, though her actions would never have let you believe it, Jac moves forward into his space and stretches up, pressing a chaste kiss upon Fletch’s lips.

It’s barely a second, and yet it is etched into her memory forever; the feeling of his lips against hers burned into the insides of her eyelids. She draws back, eyes low as she awaits his reaction, awaits the destruction of this perfect moment by that cruel beast called reality.

He edges his thumb just slightly against her jaw, reminds her it is still there, and she glances up at the slight movement. In her tired eyes, he sees fear unlike any other and it comes closer to reverence than terror.

Fletch knows that it is his turn, and this is the crucial move. The King gets the Queen or it is stalemate. And with the timid courage of a knight, he dipped to kiss her back.

His fingers are held fast in her hair and he meets her with a fervour unbeknownst to him. It is as if his lips are trying to lock themselves so tightly that this moment can’t be ended, or as if he is trying to imprint the taste of her, the feel of her, on himself so he can never be rid of it.

She tastes of the coffee that has stained the hem of her scrub top and of the raspberry lip balm she has been reapplying chronically since winter began. Her hand fell upon his hip, griped at the polyester of his scrubs, as she responded eagerly.

The moment is long and wonderful and then, it is over. Jac pulls away slowly, allows her hand to fall back to her side, smiles at him. Fletch releases her hand from his grasp and takes a small step backwards, an inconcealable grin pulling at the corners of his lips like a marionette’s being coaxed.

“I should go and make some calls,” he says softly, clearing his throat. “I’ll see you on Saturday?”

“Saturday.” She agrees, and the letter of resignation that has been sitting in her desk drawer can be thrown in the bin. All of that annual leave she had backed up might be handy though; a few weeks wasn’t enough time for the entire ward to collapse into disrepute, surely.


End file.
